THE ILLINOIZE: Will the energy bill help or hurt? Depends on who you ask...Potential for lawsuit...Jesse Sullivan's residency issues
September 14, 2021
Good morning.
We have a bunch of new subscribers with us this morning via Facebook. Thank you for being here, and feel free to reach out anytime.
Now that the legislature is gone for a little while (we hope), things feel a little more normal this morning.
Of course, the Senate sent the long awaited energy bill to the Governor to the glee of environmental supporters and over the loud objections of business interests. More on that below.
Absent any catastrophes, we won’t see the legislature back in Springfield until late October for the annual fall veto session, but there may not be a lot for lawmakers to do, other than passing those long-awaited congressional maps.
So we’ll spend the next few weeks digging in to some of the things we’ve been putting off (I still have three active FOIA requests to the Pritzker administration on the LaSalle Veterans’ Home, which were all originally sent last December). Yeah.
If you have any tips, ideas, questions, or rumors you want us to dig into, let me know. Drop me a note anytime at patrick@theillinoize.com. Your anonymity is always guaranteed.
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Let’s get to it.
BIG RATE HIKE? COAL KILLER? NUKE BAILOUT? MAYBE ALL THREE.
The Senate passed the latest version of energy legislation Monday, sending the bill to Governor JB Pritzker, who indicated he’ll sign it. The bill passed Monday with 37 votes, one more than required for passage.
There were heavy stakes riding on the legislation, you may imagine. Exelon took the Byron generating station offline around 1 a.m. yesterday and took a wait-and-see approach to the Senate vote before deciding either to refuel the plant or to continue the process of shutting it down.
Talk about waiting to the last minute.
Exelon says it will begin staffing up the Byron plant as soon as the Governor signs it into law. The passage also keeps the Dresden plant in Grundy County, near Morris, running past a planned November shutdown.
Here’s our story on passage of the bill. Here’s some wide-ranging reaction.
BUSINESS GROUPS: EMPLOYERS WILL BE HIT HARDEST BY RATE HIKES
You may already know that commercial business and manufacturing pay higher rates for electricity than residential ratepayers. So, while residential power bills are likely to go up, they’re going up higher for business owners.
Chamber President and CEO Todd Maisch told The Illinoize Monday the impact on business and manufacturing rates, which are higher than residential prices, will put Illinois business at a competitive disadvantage.
“This is yet another government disruption in the marketplace,” Maisch said. “We think that’s going to be detrimental in the long term to one of the few economic development advantages that we have, which is affordable energy.”
But Senate President Don Harmon dismissed those concerns, saying the rate hikes will keep the energy grid more reliable.
“I think, frankly, manufacturers are concerned about the overall cost every month to operate their facilities, but they should be terrified about a situation like Texas where suddenly the grid isn’t reliable and suddenly that low-cost power doesn’t get to the plant,” Harmon said Monday afternoon.
Go read the whole thing. It shows you the fundamental differences between the left and the business-minded right on this issue.
WILL THERE BE LAWSUITS?
Short answer, probably. Longer answer, probably, we just don’t know when.
It’s expected that an eminent domain piece of the bill will eventually be challenged in court. The bill gives one specific company, Grain Belt Energy, the ability to buy up private land for a transmission line in six counties in central Illinois. Though, it likely won’t be challenged until there is a fundamental effort for a private business to take private land, which could be years away.
What’s more pressing, I’m told, would be a potential lawsuit over forced closure of the Prairie State Energy plant in southern Illinois. Numerous municipalities have bought in to the coal-fired plant, and many stand to lose out if the plant is prematurely retired by the government. A spokesman for Prairie State didn’t comment last night, but keep an eye on what some municipalities who bought into the plant, especially out of state, may do to challenge the law (once it becomes a law, of course).
SULLIVAN HAS LIVED IN ILLINOIS SINCE 2016
Jesse Sullivan, the latest GOP contestant in the gubernatorial game show has been getting whacked by two of his opponents in recent days. After graduating Stanford (in northern California) with his MBA, Sullivan launched a venture capital firm.
GOP candidates Sen. Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) and businessman Gary Rabine have attempted to make the narrative about Sullivan, who is from Menard County, that he’s a California liberal freeloading carpetbagger.
In fact, Bailey said in one of his preachy Facebook videos last week that he believes Sullivan is a plant from Governor JB Pritzker.
Give me a break.
We dug through the records and Sullivan’s campaign provided us a few, some which we could independently verify and others we couldn’t (there aren’t a lot of ways to look up a 6 year old residential lease), but it seems pretty clear Sullivan has lived in the state since 2016.
Here’s our story new this morning.
Is this about Sullivan’s politics? Probably not, because he has hardly said a word about policy at this point. He’s got movie star good looks, sounds great on camera, comes across as likeable, and raised $11 million in his first day as a candidate.
The attacks are likely to continue if he keeps raising that cash.
MEA CULPA
In yesterday’s Free for All e-mail, I copied a headline from another news outlet that incorrectly stated the ethics bill was headed back to the Governor’s office. I wasn’t paying close enough attention when I copied it to notice the error. When the legislature accepts a Governor’s veto, line item veto, or amendatory veto, it becomes law when it is received by the Secretary of State’s Index Division. So, he won’t take any further action on the bill. My bad.
HAPPY BIRTHDAYS
Tomorrow: Former U.S. Senator Mark Kirk
Sunday: Former Congressman Tom Ewing
Monday: Sen. Terri Bryant, Sen. Julie Morrison, Sen. Tom Cullerton, Former Rep. Lisa Dugan
(as always, our list isn’t comprehensive, so send us your friends, colleagues, or your own birthday to patrick@theillinoize.com)
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